{"id":2483,"date":"2021-01-23T13:12:37","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T13:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinemussies.nl\/web\/?p=2483"},"modified":"2021-01-28T09:34:45","modified_gmt":"2021-01-28T09:34:45","slug":"planning-with-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/martinemussies.nl\/web\/planning-with-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Plan with SPIRIT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is January 2021, and just over half way through the month, all around me I already heard and read about people who had given up on their good intentions. That is a pity \u2013 and unnecessary. Therefore, I wrote this guest blog for Jazzy Daze<\/a>, about Planning with SPIRIT (vs. Planning with Ego) and: How to Stay Centered . In this post, I share some goal setting tricks, that will help you to plan with SPIRIT. Hope it helps!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Of course it is difficult to stick to your resolutions<\/a>; changes take a lot of time and mental energy, and the global pandemic does not help much either. Yet I would say that I\u2019m well on my way, sometimes I struggle with my planning, but on the whole, I am happily crossing out items on my long list of 100 things I would like to do in 2021<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not to brag, but some things go even better than planned. For example, I had put on my list that I wanted to start a nice cosy Facebook group for Japan Fans in the Utrecht area \u2013 to share links and articles about Japan \u2013 and now, two weeks in, we have a professional website – http:\/\/www.japanfans.nl<\/a> – that is offering virtual workshops, demonstrations, concerts and more, thanks to our sponsors (six and counting).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is your secret?\u201d \u2013 a dear friend humorously asked. Well, to be frank, I am autistic, so I don\u2019t do secrets (planning a surprise party for a significant other was one of the most stressful events of recent years). But I do have many tricks. And I need them too, because with (my) autism comes chaos, anxiety, procrastination and a lack of self-confidence. Most of these tricks – or “hacks” as I like to call them – are about goal setting methods, for research has established links between setting goals and higher motivation, self-esteem, self-confidence, and autonomy (eg Locke and Lathan, 2006; Matthews, 2015). Therefore, I am happy that I could share some of these hacks on The Jazzy Daze of Fashion<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Goal Setting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So, what exactly is this \u201cgoal setting\u201d? For me, it entails the development of action plans intended to encourage and guide myself towards an objective. Successful goal setting is therefore a method of motivating myself, by ensuring that I am more in control of results or outcomes. There are vastly different processes that play a crucial role in the realization of the outcomes. Importantly, having goals improves focus. Nonetheless, in setting goals that rely on a set of core values, you need to ensure that goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely \u2013 aka SMART (Rosswurm and Crabtree, 2018). Setting SMART goals will help in basing decision making and building focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are, however, a few snags and catches in setting yourself SMART goals. They might lead to ego driven, materialistic, superficial behaviour, as the focus is completely on the outcome, instead of on the formation of new habits. A good example is my friend, whose SMART goal was to reach a certain amount of points on Duolingo on a certain day. When the exercises became difficult and she did not earn that many points, she switched languages and practised a language she already knew quite well, in order to achieve her goal of points. Which she did, but this behaviour only distracted her from the higher goal of learning a new language. In this case, a better \u201cgoal\u201d for her would have been to practise X minutes of the new language for X times a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research by scholars like Locke and Latham (2019) position that goal setting can be hard if people do not use sensible ways to help in realizing success and that the process of setting goals needs to be as significant as the result. So, if people do not reach their goals, they will think that they are failures. Overcoming that feeling of being failures will need goal targets that offer mental flexibility, so that an entity\u2019s goals motivate them to achieve the things that they desire. But these can be hard to formulate, as planning might be difficult and overwhelming for you, especially if you have autism and\/or AD(H)D. Therefore, I record plan videos, to fill in the white pages together while I share my little tricks of goal setting with you. For less stress and more peace, overview, structure and serenity in your life.
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